In reply to Steve Cross' arguments for Proportional Representation (PR). First, another clarification: The origin of IRV for municipal elections did not grow out of the idea of IRV for endorsements; it was the other way around. There is an effort around IRV for municipal elections and the idea of using IRV for endorsements was suggested by me and others as a way to address rule changes in ward 2 conventions.
Now to PR, which was also been debated on the list. IRV and PR are complementary, not at odds with each other. IRV is the use of preference voting to elect members in multiple single-district seats like our city council. Preference voting in a PR system can be done with Single Transferable Vote (STV) to ensure both majority rule AND minority representation. One or more multi-seat districts are created, depending on how voters want to be represented. Voters can choose their own criteria for how they wish to be represented, by party, geography, specific issue, race, etc. A single multiple-seat district can be created for the city and voters can vote for a candidate who lives near them if that is important to them. Or, if the city wants to ensure geographic representation, it can create smaller multi-seat districts, or have a mixed system of geographically based single districts and a multiple-seat at-large district (I think this was the proposal in the Star Tribune series). The pros and cons of these approaches have been debated on the list. Regardless of how the district is organized, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. The more voters who agree with you, the more candidates on your list that get elected. IRV is the single-winner version of STV. IRV is an incremental reform that can help lead to proportional representation because it gets voters and the election system used to ranking candidates and processing ranked ballots. IRV is beneficial as a reform for municipal elections because it is easier to talk about than PR since it is simply a reform of the voting method rather than a reorganization of the existing council makeup. It also addresses the problems with the current plurality voting method (winners with less than majority support and the spoiler problem) and the two-round, primary-general election used in nonpartisan municipal elections (low primary turn out and longer, costlier campaigns that limit who can run for office). Jeanne Massey Kingfield REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
